Sunday, July 22, 2018

Some 800 members of the controversial Western-backed White Helmets will be brought to Jordan through Israel to be reportedly resettled later in the UK, Canada, and Germany. The UN is overseeing the exodus.
Hundreds of the self-described aid workers, who operate exclusively in rebel-held areas, have crossed into Israel from southwestern Syria overnight on Sunday, German tabloid Bild reported, citing its own correspondents in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The White Helmets' passage has been facilitated by Israel, according to Bild, which reports they have been transferred through an Israeli military base. The evacuation kicked off at 9:30 pm local time on Saturday and was expected to continue into the night. Several roads were put on lockdown by the army and police as part of preparations for the exodus.

Israel previously admitted that it has been providing humanitarian assistance to Syrian militants, treating over 1,000 wounded terrorist/rebel fighters in its hospitals. According to Israel's ex-Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, the assistance was granted under the condition that the militants would not let Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and Al-Qaeda affiliated fighters slip into Israel and would not do any harm to the population of Druze villages.

However, Israel has been adamant about not taking in Syrian refugees, with hawkish Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman stating last month that while the Jewish state keeps providing "humanitarian aid to civilians, women and children" camped on the Syrian side of the border, it "will not accept any Syrian refugee to our territory."

It is supposed that the White Helmets will not stay in the Jewish state for longer than is needed to transport them to the Jordanian border. The transfer has been confirmed by Jordanian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ambassador Mohammad al-Kayed, as cited by Ammon News.

Al-Kayed said that Jordan had granted the request on purely humanitarian grounds after Britain, Canada and Germany each reportedly pledged to take in a share of the White Helmets fleeing what they describe as potential persecution by Damascus. Last month, Jordan, which already hosts some 1.3 million displaced Syrians, said it won't take any more in, stressing the need for a "political solution."
RT
22/7/18

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Canada and the US had requested Israel’s help in evacuating a contingent of White Helmets from Syria, in a statement issued from Jerusalem on Sunday.

“In the last few days, United States President Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and several others asked for our help in assisting hundreds of Syrian “White Helmets,” Netanyahu said.

He stated that the White Helmets had found themselves in life-threatening danger.

“I therefore permitted their transfer through Israel to additional countries, as an important humanitarian step,” stated the Israeli prime minister. almasdarnews.com 23/7/18

A new report gets dirty on the details of Israeli funding and weapons shipments to 12 anti-government extremist groups in Syria...

Buried in the end of the piece is the revelation that Israel helped evacuate so-called “rebel commanders” as they also flew out members of the self-proclaimed “impartial” White Helmets organization.On August 22, Israel evacuated some 800 members of the White Helmets, a group funded by the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and other Western countries, that claims to be an impartial civil defense organization but has been accused by Syria and Russia of terrorism. Its members have been caught on video grinning wildly as a child nearby was being beheaded in addition to other atrocities, while a high-budget film about the group won the 2017 Academy Award for best documentary.

But as the White Helmets and members of their immediate families were evacuated from southern Syria as the government was liberating it from jihadists, so too were "rebel commanders" and their families, according to Foreign Policy. sputnik 7/9/18

The removal of a Jerusalem Post article that clearly noted the Israeli military had supplied Islamist rebels in Syria with weapons and funds is just "the tip of the iceberg," journalist and filmmaker Dan Cohen told Sputnik. SPUTNIK 7/9/18